News

**Galaxy**

The test of an experimental hypersonic jet ended in failure when it spun out of control and crash into the Pacific Ocean just 15 seconds after launch about 2.35pm eastern time today.
The US Air Force's X-51A Waverider was designed to travel at Mach 6 -- so fast it could fly from London to New York in 45 minutes.
Instead, a control fin failed and the unmanned aircraft spun out of control before the primary rocket could fire.
This is the third time the Air Force's $300million project has not met expectations. The previous launch, in June 2011, failed to fire its hypersonic jet engine.

'It is unfortunate that a problem with this subsystem caused a termination before we could light the Scramjet engine,' Charlie Brink, the manager of the X-51A project, said in a statement.
'All our data showed we had created the right conditions for engine ignition and we were very hopeful to meet our test objectives.'
The craft was flown from Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert in California, attached to the wing of a massive B-52 bomber.

The jet was then dropped from almost 50,000ft near the Point Mugu promontory. A rocket booster was supposed to ignite and speed it up to about Mach 4.5 and, if all went well, the aircraft’s engine took over from there, pushing the speed to more than Mach 6 and lifting the craft to 70,000ft.
The mission was supposed to last 300 seconds – the longest the craft has ever flown to date. After the historic test, the plane was supposed to crash into the sea, and there are no plans to recover it.
Hypersonic flight – which relates to speeds of more than five times the speed of sound – is seen as the next step for aircraft.
‘Attaining sustained hypersonic flight is like going from propeller-driven aircraft to jet aircraft,’ Robert Mercier, deputy for technology in the high speed systems division at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio told the Los Angeles Times.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...z23hXIVxVN

**Galaxy**

**Unmanned Immortal** lop guest User ID: 87007 08-16-2012 03:18 PM

It was stated that they planned for the vehicle to be "disposable". They always pull this "disposable vehicle" shit when they've already spent the money on something else. We have plenty of old X51 footage to release to the public. Bought another fast food franchise with the budget money, I betcha.

chuckle